not be leaving. this is our home. and it is very important to us. we are already here. but please come back and visit us frequently. this wonderful new laguna honda would not exist without you. i just want to add a personal note. my younger sister, emily, was a resident here for many more years than i have been. she was greatly loved. we lost her recently. i would like to dedicate this speech to her and remembered her, as many of the residents do, with great fondness and affection. thank you all. [applause]

>> i would like to invite you all nowi that good enough? this is a participatory ribbon cutting. it requires nothing more complicated than this. i will ask you to count down, not up. upon conclusion, we will applaud the great works of turner construction, the dedicated men and women who are still toiling inside to get this project completed, which begs the question when will the residents be moving in that? there is an easy answer -- soon. [laughter] [crowd chants a countdown]

[applause] go ahead in an orderly manner.

[music] hello, i'm ivette torres and welcome to another edition of the road to recovery. today we'll be talking about treating addiction among our nation's youth. joining us in our panel today are frances harding, director, center for substance abuse prevention, substance abuse and mental health services administration,

u.s. department of health and human services, rockville, maryland; monique bourgeois, executive director, association of recovery schools, fort washington, pennsylvania; greg williams, co-director, connecticut turning to youth and families, danbury, connecticut; dr. mark godley, director, research and development, chestnut health systems, bloomington, illinois. fran, what is the extent of the problem with youth in america? our most recent survey from samhsa is that around 10 million, a little over 10 million of our young people, are using alcohol and substances. that actually breaks down to 26 percent of them are drinking and another 17 percent of them are binge drinking,

which is having more than five drinks in a row at one setting. so it's a concern of ours that our young people are really starting to accelerate drinking and drugging than they have in the past. and mark, it's really...as fran has mentioned, alcohol is really the main problem. what other substances are youth taking today? while most youth who use, do use alcohol, marijuana runs a pretty close second with high use in marijuana. but probably the most rapidly growing segment of new use is in the prescription drug area with high increasing numbers of new users coming into the system who've used prescription drugs and normally getting it from a relative or from friends. and inhalants may be a problem as well? inhalants is a problem at younger ages more so

than at the older ages. we see a higher use of inhalants with the 13- to 17-year-olds than with the 18- to 24-year-old. and the challenge with inhalants is that they're more readily available. they're in the homes, so. gateway-type drug to using other things, eventually. monique, what are some of the factors that really place a youth at risk? well i think factors that place the youth at risk for using substances include underlying mental health issues. i think that environmental factors play an important role if they're in a community that is highly supportive of use. maybe at home there's using going on. i think that those are some really big contributing factors. and greg, why should we be concerned in america with all of these issues with youth?

well i think the biggest thing is people don't generally realize all the different areas that are impacted by young people using drugs and alcohol, you know. if you look at, you know, in my life, you know, you talk about the hospitalizations, the criminal stuff, all the different areas in my life that were impacted as a result of my alcohol and drug use. so it wasn't just that i was putting myself at risk but i was putting other people at risk and i was causing, you know, impacts in different areas of society. for our audience, give them an idea of how you ran into trouble with substances. you know, when i was about 13 or 14, you know, i experienced with alcohol, you know, and when i first drank, it helped me to, you know, feel accepted. it helped me to feel a part of, you know, and i had a lot of fear and anxiety and acceptance issues growing up, and, you know, alcohol did change that for me. and then quickly it became, you know, marijuana

because it was easier to obtain than alcohol, you know. i mean it was parents' cabinets, things like that, you know, early on and i progressed pretty quickly, you know. i liked drinking and drugging and i liked the feeling and, you know, so i embraced it, you know. how did you get help? i ultimately received help through family support. my family got very concerned when i was 16 and 17 and i started to do a lot more risky behaviors with using heavier pharmaceutical drugs and opiates and they started to see a lot of consequences through car accidents and school, you know, issues and, you know, i used to do athletics and i wasn't doing athletics anymore and, you know, so it was really my family who pushed me to the direction of, you know, putting me first into an outpatient program and then subsequently into an inpatient treatment setting after a car accident. and fran, isn't this typical is that the parents sometimes don't even have a clue?

can you talk a little bit about what parents need to be looking out for. one thing that parents should know better watching today is that you are a huge influence on young people's behavior, not only while they were pushing you to get into treatment but to prevent a younger person from getting into trouble to begin with. and we teach parents to look out for signs, some of what you've already mentioned. you were an athlete and then you went away from that. usually you will see, parents should see, signs if they have a group of friends that they've been hanging around with since they were 10 years old and then all of a sudden, 15, 16, they have a whole new group of friends. we teach parents to go into the bedrooms and to look around and see the signs of what's changed in the room and what becomes more important, and mostly listen to what they're talking about, who they're talking with, how secretive they become with

their computers, all of these things contribute to triggers that a possible problem...may not be alcohol, may not be drugs but there is a problem brewing here that will ultimately turn into something that's dangerous. monitoring is huge for parents. to know the whereabouts of your young person, who they hang out with, what they do in their free time, that's extremely important, but as greg sort of alluded to as well, the thing about parents is they're the first teachers that a child has. they're the role models, they're the teachers and so one of the things we tell parents is that if you use, stop using in the house, you know, if you drink, don't drink in the house; don't keep alcohol in the house and don't drink because you're a role model now. and if you suspect that your adolescent is having issues, they will do as you do as well. so take care about your own use.

and that doesn't always sit well but it's a pretty important step to take at times. also, getting involved in their adolescents' activities, knowing what their extracurriculars are and being a part of that, monitoring homework so that you're on top of that. you don't have to do the homework with them or do it for them, for heaven sakes, but to be a part of it and to make sure it's happening and then and so finally is what we see in treatment settings over time is that with their families in treatment is is that the interactions have become characterized by negative, you know, interactions too often and so slowly beginning to flip it toward more positive, finding more positive things to interact about is just huge, so increase positive communication. but mark, in a way, for some individuals and some families, and correct me if i'm wrong, people can

also teach their children to use alcohol moderately at the right age when they, you know, when it's legal because i think the majority of people are going to probably say well, you know what, i'm an adult; i have an opportunity to have wine with dinner, you know. and so for the homes where people have that kind of a perspective, what type of message should they be sending, monique? well, i think that it's important that people are educated on adolescent brain development and knowing that at a certain age the brain is fully developed, up near 25, and so the younger a child starts using, the greater the likelihood that they're going to become dependent. and so i think keeping that information in mind and helping parents understand that it's really important that delaying onset of use is really going to produce the best results for that student.

and that, you know, at an appropriate age and appropriate time it is okay to, you know, partake in something that is legal. with moderation, correct greg? yeah. i mean, i think the biggest thing, you know, something fran alluded to, i mean, is sometimes as a society we don't acknowledge that drugs or alcohol happening in our house or we don't acknowledge it's happening in our school. and i think that statistics say otherwise, that your adolescent is going to be experiencing drugs and alcohol and they're going to be exposed to it at some way, shape or form and so, you know, there's a lot of families who don't accept that, you know, statement, and it's families that can accept that and say, okay, what are we going to do about it now; my child's going to be exposed to this. do we want to have an open environment at home where we're talking openly about it or do we want to have this punitive push it under the rug, let's not talk about it? but as soon as something bad happens, we're going to punish them so, you know, there's a lot of people who talk about, you know, having a safety

phone call, you know, for an adolescent where if a young person is out at a party or something, they have a non-punitive way to call their family and come get a ride if they're in trouble, you know. and they know that they're not going to get in trouble and it's usually that fear. for me, it was the same thing. it was, you know, i didn't want to tell my family what i was doing because of the fear of being grounded or for them to worry about me. but it's like changing that paradigm about, you know, that if we talk openly about this, it becomes a much more environment where people can seek help easier. and when we come back, i want to pick up, fran, on the risk and protective factors that we need our audience to know. we'll be right back. [music] youth are not unlike any other substance user or

person with addiction. i think the difference is is how important peers are for those individuals. kids are so dependent on their peers for how they think, how they do social engagement. it's really important that they have a set of peers that don't drink, don't take, don't use, that they can look to for the support that they need. i think sometimes we think of substance abusers as not being able to recover until they've been through a long, long, long period of addiction. and i think what we're realizing is that kids do recover. we have lots of examples of young people who are 16 and 17 and 18 who've been sober, clean and sober for 2 or 3 years as they've realized what that's going to mean to their lives. so those kinds of supports are important to them as well. we know that a young person's brain is still maturing, still developing. it's harder for a young person to control their impulses. it's harder for a young person to avoid, especially a young male's sensation-seeking activities.

they are also more tune to the demands of their peer group. so they're more likely to make impulsive decisions and all of those things affect recovery and sobriety. people who suffer from drug or alcohol addiction sometimes say hurtful things. they drive the people who love them most away. if you know someone who suffers from drug or alcohol addiction, listen; try to hear what they are really saying; know that there is hope and help them find their voice again. for drug or alcohol treatment referral for you or someone you know, call 1-800-662-help; brought to you by the u.s. department of health and human services. how was school today? how was school today? your session go alright? you have a good session? want to go to a game with me? i got tickets to the game.

talk with the kids in your life about drugs and alcohol and if they're in treatment or recovery, support them, even if you have to practice. i am so proud of you. for drugs and alcohol information and treatment referral, call 1-800-622-help. [music] working as a documentary film-maker with youth, you know, has taught me a lot and i've learned a lot, you know, just in the process of giving back and educating myself to other pathways to recovery. you know, i had my experience, my personal experience and my recovery but, you know, videotaping and capturing other stories has opened my mind to multiple pathways and different ways people recover from drugs and alcohol. fran, let's talk about some of those protective factors that parents can utilize in order to speak

to their children and counsel them. well, some of them have already been mentioned about having the parent participate in the child's life. and parents kind of shrug that off but if you see parents of elementary students and the concerts they go to, the science fairs and then you go and you flip the years forward in high school and you go to their concerts and you go to their sports events, there's very few parents there because they feel they're older now and they don't need that kind of support, so we look to that. we look to teachers to really see a young person as an individual so that we can have the teachers work with them to get the best grades possible because we know one of the protective factors that have been studied and this has been over time. this not someone's thoughts; this is actual in science...shows that if in the fifth and sixth grade if the young person has good grades, that's a "b" average student. they are more likely to succeed in school, and in family, feel good about themselves and

have less risk going forward. and the "less" is in the community, to have the community and their places of worship and everywhere where a young person goes that we watch out for our children. and if it's not my child, it's your child that i watch out for them. i don't let them go home alone day after day, even if i am working. i'm sure that a neighbor or a community center or an after school program that the young person goes to because between the hours of three and seven is when most of our young people are getting into trouble because they're left home alone way too much. so if the protective factors don't work, mark, what type of treatment is available for youth today? well, there's not enough treatment available for youth today and that might be a good place to start by talking about what the disparity really is in the number of youth who might need treatment and what's available.

for example, right now we see that among the 13- to 17-year-olds that only about one in six who need treatment get treatment. and if the older youth age range of say 18 to 24 it's even worst; only about one in 20 are in treatment who might meet the criteria for a drug or alcohol dependence. so it's...there's not enough resources to fund the kind of treatment that needs to be out there and the kind of treatment that needs to be out there is really what's called evidence-based treatments that have been scientifically shown to work better than standard treatment, if you will. and so we see a number of new evidence-based treatments and really the adolescent treatment field is rich with those right now. there must be a half of dozen or more that are listed on the end rep web site that endorses... i shouldn't say endorses but that has shown and

represents these treatments to the field of their science based and they've shown effectiveness. so i think those kinds of treatments and i can name some like mdft multi- dimensional family therapy... so translate that for us. well, that's a family-oriented therapy that's usually done in about a 90-day period. then there's another called the adolescent community reinforcement approach that i'm associated with and this is a model that involves the family as well where we meet individually with a care-giver and we meet individually with the adolescent. we teach skills. as i mentioned earlier, we talk about the lack of positive communication; that things have sort of flipped maybe from the time they were children to when they became an adolescent, things have flipped from positive communication to being characterized by negative communication. and how do you get that back? and greg, how did you get help? what type of treatment program were you exposed to?

you know, after i was involved in a crisis, a car accident, you know, hospitalization, my family enrolled me into a chemical dependency residential program in pennsylvania and, you know, i spent 3 or 4 weeks there with a group of peers. so that was really an important part of my treatment was connecting with the 20 or 30 other young people that were just like me who used and drank just like me because, you know, i could deny if i met other people in recovery or you know, came across other counselors and stuff, i could deny that i had an issue. but as soon as i heard from other young people my story and the same similar experiences, i was able to break down some of that denial for myself, you know, because i really didn't go to treatment seeking recovery. i went to treatment to get my family off my back, you know, and to be really honest. and it was in treatment where that evolution happened for me, you know.

and then i spent another 90 days in a recovery house and that was really important to connect, you know, real life with my recovery and bridge myself back to the community. and that's an excellent point. and after that, monique, comes the offering of the recovery school. yeah. recovery schools are really college and high school programs that provide academic and recovery support for students who are in need of that type of support. it's like greg mentioned that connection with peers who are like you and are struggling like you to find this journey of recovery. i think that recovery schools can provide the academic support that are so needed for students who are early in recovery and are making that transition into hopefully long-term sustainable recovery.

they provide embedded recovery supports within the programs that address...such as... things like the academic support, help with schooling. a lot of times when students have been using, they miss out key things in their academics. they also provide, recovery schools also provide mental health supports, support related to their addiction recovery, relapse prevention, all those things that are essential to helping increase days abstinence and reduce days using. are the tutors, i suspect some tutoring goes on, are they from the peer group themselves or how are they offered to the membership that attend recovery schools? the academics and recovery high schools and in college programs are done by licensed teachers and staff. the support that is taking place is through also

licensed professionals. so the recovery support is maybe through a licensed alcohol and drug counselor or recovery coach, those types of things. are there any stipulations in terms of engaging the families? it is highly encouraged that families be a part of the recovery process, especially with adolescents and young adults. we know that the chances of a young adult or an adolescent succeeding are going to be greater if they have family support. but what fran said earlier about how over time the parents sort of back off a little bit, it's really true. you see it, so much involvement in the elementary school years and then it sort of dissipates over time and so sometimes it's our biggest struggle to get parental involvement and engagement in the support programs. and i think the biggest thing now for families to understand is that there's a lot of shame and guilt associated once you uncover that your child is using drugs or alcohol. and so like, you know, my family, you know,

once they were educated about addiction and they were educated about that they didn't cause my addiction and that they needed, you know, some help, it wasn't their fault that i became addicted, you know, they were able to do sort of their own recovery and family recovery is really important. and there's quite a bit of social supports for families specifically to do their own sort of healing because, you know, alcoholics and people who are addicted, they definitely don't injure themselves alone. they're in a family unit a lot of times and they take people with them. something that greg, you just mentioned, which is the shame and the secrecy that families have, which contributes by the way, as you know, to your own addiction and in sense of recovery and it's the community. wouldn't it be nice if we were advancing closer and closer into a world where our community embraces the recovery process of alcohol or drug addiction

or an eating disorder or obesity or whatever it is that we're looking at. and substance abuse is definitely one of those areas and the recovery of where we're bringing the community together so that they can then be a part of so the families and the schools are all saying the same messages and that they know. monique, you said something incredibly important earlier to bring back up, it's that delay of onset. we know, by science, if we can delay a young person from using, even experimenting until they're 18, 19 years old, there's a far better chance that they won't have an addiction problem. those are all things that contribute to...so getting the schools, the families, and the communities all working in cooperation and working together not only will help identify but will help to get young people into treatment earlier and will embrace concepts like recovery schools, recovery centers, and families.

and when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about family engagement and additional programs to treat adolescents who have an addiction problem. we'll be right back. [music] it is important to be familiar with the proper terminology surrounding addiction and recovery. one of the terms you want to be familiar with is self-help groups. self-help groups are mutual aid groups for recovery support services that include 12-step programs, support groups, and peer counseling groups that meet on a regular basis. for more information on this and other recovery jargon,

visit the recovery month web sites. feeling overwhelmed by current events? don't turn to drugs and alcohol. hey, how was your run? great. substance abuse is not the way to manage life. if you or someone you know needs information or treatment referral, call 1-800-662-help. [music]